Chapter 32
“You’re up early.” Nell, sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and a half-eaten corn muffin, looked closely at her older daughter. There were dark circles under Molly’s eyes and her face looked drawn.
“I’ve been awake since four,” Molly said, slumping into the chair next to Nell’s.
Nell noted that Molly was once again wearing the ring that had belonged to Mick’s grandmother. For a moment she wondered if she should comment upon it and then decided not to say a word.
“Can I get you some breakfast?” she asked.
“No,” Molly said. “That’s okay. But I will have a cup of coffee.”
Nell reached for the press pot and poured coffee into one of the mugs on the table. “Still no word from Mick?” she asked.
Molly shook her head. “Can I talk to you, Mom?”
“Of course,” Nell said.
“Where do I even begin?” Molly took a sip of coffee before going on. “You know, it’s ironic. I’ve been studying psychology for the past four years. You’d think I could have applied some of what I’ve learned to my own situation and understood myself better.”
Nell patted her daughter’s hand. “Self-knowledge is usually the most difficult to achieve. Don’t punish yourself for being human.”
“Not easy. Anyway, I’ve finally come to understand that for the past few months I’ve been terrified. And yet, I didn’t feel afraid when I was going on about breaking up with Mick and seeing other men and leaving Yorktide behind. I felt brave. I didn’t know I was afraid of what a life here in Maine with Mick represented until he started to give me those gifts, and then it all became so clear. I was afraid.” Molly looked at the ring on her finger and shook her head. “Can fear tell you lies? I mean, can it make you believe your motives are good and healthy, like wanting to experience new things and meet new people, and not what they really are, which in my case was cowardice?”
“Yes,” Nell said. “Fear can lie to you. It can make you do terrible things. It can lead you to make decisions against your own good.” Like walking away from Eric, she thought. Like turning my back on poetry.
“I realize now,” Molly went on, “that the depth of the love I feel for Mick frightened me. It didn’t help that a lot of my friends thought I was nuts to want to get married to my first and only boyfriend.” Molly smiled ruefully. “Some of them even congratulated me when I told them I’d broken up with Mick.”
“I hope you realize that some of those critics might simply have been jealous of your relationship with Mick.”
“I see that now.” Molly paused for a moment before going on. “It’s like, you graduate from college and you’re supposed to start making adult decisions and living an adult life. For me, that meant marrying Mick like I’d planned. But suddenly, it felt as if everything was moving too fast. It felt as if the future was already here when I wasn’t done with the present.”
“And so deciding to move to Boston was a way to avoid making the most adult decision of all,” Nell said.
“Exactly. To stay with someone I loved and who loved me. I want to be with Mick forever, Mom. I really do. I want to be an important part of his family and an important part of the farm.”
“I know you do,” Nell assured her. “And when you marry him I know you won’t allow your true self to slip away, no matter how much a part of his family and the farm you become. Mick wouldn’t want that, either. What you have with Mick is truly lovely.”
Molly pulled her robe closer around her. “What I had with Mick. Now I have nothing.”
Nell put her hand on her daughter’s. “Don’t be so sure,” she said gently. “He needs time to heal. A young man’s ego can be a very sensitive thing, and he’d put so much time and effort into making this Christmas special for you.”
“I feel so ashamed, Mom,” Molly confessed. “Sometimes I forget that men feel just as deeply as we do. What’s wrong with me that I could ignore that fact?”
Nell wondered if Molly was thinking of her father as well as of Mick, but she refrained from asking. What she said was: “Don’t be too hard on yourself, Molly. None of us are immune to fear. Sometimes it wins and sometimes it loses. I wish it lost all the time, but it doesn’t.”
Molly smiled wanly. “Thanks for listening, Mom. And thanks for trying to make me feel like less of a jerk. I really appreciate all you do for me.”
I am needed, Nell thought. I must never allow myself to forget that. “It’s my pleasure,” she said honestly.
“So, what’s the craft of the day?”
Nell sat back in her chair. In truth all she had planned for the day other than preparing for tomorrow’s Christmas dinner was to continue to read the book of poems Eric had given her. She laughed. “Nothing. I guess I’m finally out of ideas.”
“There’s still the window on the Advent calendar to open,” Molly pointed out, getting up from the table. “December twenty-fourth,” she said as she pulled open the last of the little cardboard windows of the big brick house. “It’s a sprig of mistletoe.” Molly turned to Nell. “Maybe it’s a good omen.”
“Maybe it is,” Nell said. Maybe it is for us both.
* * *
Nell was sitting in the book nook of the living room when Eric called on her cell phone.
“Hi,” he croaked.
“You don’t sound very good,” Nell said worriedly.
“I don’t feel very good, either. I’ve got a cold coming on. But all I need is to stay in bed for the day. Works every time.”
“I could bring you anything you need,” Nell told him. “Cough medicine, aspirin, chicken soup.”
“Don’t go to any trouble, Nell. I’ll be fine,” he assured her.
“I was reading Gabrielle Lagum’s poems when you called. Her work is really lovely. The poems are sharp and clear. They glitter with truth.”
“I had a feeling her work would speak to you. I—” A cough interrupted Eric’s next words.
“You should be trying to get some sleep,” Nell told him. “You’ll call me if you need anything, won’t you?”
“I will, I promise. Thanks, Nell. I’m looking forward to tomorrow.”
“Me too,” she said. “Goodbye.” In fact, it was only now that Nell realized just how much she was relying on Eric’s being with her and the girls for Christmas. If he wasn’t able to join them . . . The appearance of the girls turned Nell’s thoughts away from the unhappy possibility.
Felicity went to the window that looked out onto the side yard. “I can’t see anything but a wall of snow, not even the Masons’ house, and that’s only like twenty yards away. Isn’t it awesome that no two snowflakes are identical,” she said, turning to face the room.
Molly, still looking wan and pale, sank into the armchair across from her mother’s. “You know, white is supposed to be the color of hope and purity and innocence, but sometimes it’s scarier than black. Like today. The world looks so blanched and drained of life.”
“In Chinese culture white is sometimes a symbol of death,” Nell pointed out. “People wear white to funerals.”
Felicity plopped onto the floor and sat cross-legged. “You two are depressing. What are you reading, Mom?”
“Eric gave me this book of poems by a young Ugandan writer.”
Molly reached out for the book, and Nell passed it to her. She opened the book at the beginning and slowly turned a few pages. A moment later she returned it with a small smile. Nell realized that Molly must have seen Eric’s inscription.
Felicity suddenly sprang up from the floor and pounded upstairs with no explanation.
“Does she ever sit still for long?” Nell asked rhetorically.
Molly rose from her chair. “Nope. I’ll be back soon, Mom. I want to make one last delivery of goodies to the Pine Hill Residence for the Elderly before the weather gets any worse. And yes, Mom,” she added with a smile, “I’ll be careful.”